11/9/2021 Yesterdays News from Melody

 

I went out early this morning to a westside beach.  When I drove up, a man recognized me and said there were 2 seals down the beach past the bath house.  I gathered my things and headed towards that direction and sure enough, there were two seals.  After a while, I was able to ID them as Ka’ale H32 by his tag and Kawika R407 by the line scar on his head.  I hung around for a while and a few people came by to take pictures, but it wasn’t very busy.  

An HMAR volunteer showed up.  I had met her once out at the Marine Base when she was monitoring the turtle nests.  While we were watching the seals, another seal came swimming up.  Of course, as usual, it got a little loud and “the boys” had to make a big scene.  It didn’t last for long.  The seal coming is was G28 Lefty ID’d by his CC scars and broken tag.  The 3 stayed on the beach for a little while, but then decided to go play in the water.  They swam down the beach a ways.  Lefty decided to haul out down there, but Kaale and Kawika stayed in the water and wrestled a little more.  Lefty finally joined them and they all slowly swam back to where they started.  I saw them foraging and picking up snacks as they headed back.  The 3 hauled out and nestled themselves in the sand and there they stayed and snoozed.  

Later in the morning we met up with Team R&B for a few minutes as they came by and saw the boys.  We then got word that there was a seal at Paradise Cove so we headed over that way.  It turned out that the seal was at another beach close by.  When we got there, we found Aukai (L12) and there was of course a small group of people enjoying the view.  We stayed for a while for some education and outreach and then headed home early afternoon. 

Kawika R407

Kawika & Lefty

Lefty

Kaale

Three boys

Aukai